For years, Europe stood at the forefront of global efforts to expose hidden wealth and combat financial crime. A central pillar of that effort was transparency-specifically, making it possible to identify the real individuals behind companies, known as ultimate beneficial owners (UBOs). By opening access to corporate ownership data, European countries enabled journalists, investigators, and civil society groups to uncover corruption that had long thrived in secrecy.

Today, that progress is being reversed.

Across the European Union, access to beneficial ownership registries is shrinking. What was once a relatively open system has become fragmented, bureaucratic, and often inaccessible. The consequences are serious: corruption is harder to detect, financial crime is easier to conceal, and public accountability is weakened.

This shift largely stems from a 2022 ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union, which concluded that unrestricted public access to beneficial ownership data could violate privacy rights. In response, many EU member states shut down or limited access to their registries. While the intention may have been to protect personal data, the outcome has been a significant blow to transparency.

The impact of this rollback is not theoretical. It directly affects the ability to investigate and expose wrongdoing.

A powerful example is the case of Riad Salame. Once widely respected, Salame faced growing criticism during Lebanon’s financial collapse. Investigative journalists later uncovered that he had amassed substantial wealth abroad through offshore companies. Crucially, part of this investigation relied on access to Luxembourg’s beneficial ownership registry, which at the time was publicly available. Although Salame’s name did not appear in........

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